Face Paint and Masks
by kaiserklee
Summary: The moment 'Yasuhiro' passes from Yamada's lips, Celes' heart stops.


**Face Paint and Masks**

"Oh, the light...the light...it's becoming larger. It's...just like...a comet."

He is still alive.

Celes feels the smallest beginnings of insidious panic take root in her heart as Yamada impossibly opens his eyes again. She'd thought, with absolute certainty, that she'd killed him with that one blow. But here he is now, seemingly revived by tears, and all her plans teeter on the edge of total collapse. All because Yamada Hifumi is impossibly, infuriately alive.

"...Yamada, who did this to you? Who attacked you? Who is the culprit?"

Celes' heart skips a beat. She cannot, will not be exposed here. No, she _refuses_ to be exposed here, not after enduring so much and after all her exhaustive planning. Fortune has always favored her, graced her, from the time of her birth onwards to carry her through her life as a gambler. Luck is her ally. This time will be no exception.

"Cul...prit? I know...the culprit's name...I remember..."

_No. No. No. No no no no nononono_ -

"Ya...su...hi...ro."

_...What?_

Yamada finally succumbs to his wounds, but as the others crowd around his corpse, Celes' vaunted mask cracks. She cannot bring herself to act concerned as she knows she should, as she staggers backward in mute shock. Her hand reaches out unconsciously to grip the corner of a cabinet, and she surprises herself with how hard, how desperately she clutches it.

How had Yamada known that name? It was impossible. She had never told him, has never told anyone here at Hope's Peak - she has no reason to. Her real name is the greatest secret she keeps; it is a relic of a past life, something she tries to forget herself, let alone something she bandies around like common knowledge. Yamada should not have, could not have known her real name...not unless she herself had told him.

And she most certainly did not.

"This world doesn't work according to the rules of classic manga. You can't hope to bring someone back to life with just the power of tears..."

Something inside Celes snaps at the condescension in Togami's voice. Always so arrogant. Always so removed, in ways Celes herself both admires and reviles, but this time something in her just snaps.

"Your heart really is made out of stone. I hope your body at least gets some good minerals out of it."

Her words sound as calm as they always do, but the emotion behind them is not. Celes doesn't even realize she spoke up against Togami until she has finished her retort, nearly heaving with repressed anger that he dared, dared mock the dead like that - that he could not pay even an ounce of respect for Yamada's treasured manga even in his death -

_...Why do I care?_

She's snapped out of her strange thoughts by Oogami's deep voice.

"He did say...'Yasuhiro', did he not?"

"Yasuhiro...Yasuhiro Hagakure. He couldn't have meant anyone else."

Celes tells the others that to hide her crime, but more importantly she is telling herself that. The alternative - that Yamada had truly known her name - is unthinkable. Yes, Celes tells herself as she rebuilds her mask, that fat fool must have tried to protect her in his last moments out of some deluded infatuation.

That's all.

* * *

Celes tells herself that, but she is so distracted at the Class Trial even the Queen of Liars falls.

* * *

The fires are snaking their way up the pyre, tauntingly slow at first, then faster and faster. The acrid smell and heavy smoke of burning wood assault her senses, but it is the heat Celes feels most of all. It seems, she thinks whimsically to herself, that she is dressed at once perfectly and yet inappropriately for the occasion - perfectly because her death will be the picture of elegance, but inappropriately because she is absolutely sweltering in her dress.

She clasps her hands together and closes her eyes, bears it all with a lofty smile as always, until the first embers tentatively lick at her feet. Each second counts down pointedly until her shoes are consumed, and as if sensing weakness the flames intensify. The pain begins. Her skin reddens, then blackens and blisters, throbbing nerves screaming the screams she will not allow past her lips. She finds it almost impossible to bear. But she is, after all, Celestia Ludenberg, and she cannot allow those watching her to know she is in pain. She keeps smiling, even as she feels her makeup melting under the heat and sloughing off with her sweat.

Celes clenches her shaking hands tight. The blaze is crawling higher, igniting the wood around her legs, and fingers of flame tear off her leggings. It is indescribable agony as she feels her lower body burn, and Celes cannot help it - she bites her lip, hard enough to draw blood, but the smallest of gasps escapes her.

And then she remembers.

Two years of lost memories.

Yamada Hifumi.

_"Celestia Ludenberg's dream is a life of perfect decadence in a dark mansion, surrounded by vampires."_

_"Speaking in third-person? Are you, perhaps, the villain of a certain series-"_

_Celes places a finger over Yamada's lips, and he silences immediately._

_"But maybe Yasuhiro Taeko prefers something else now."_

_She gives Yamada's reddening cheek a light pat before walking away. Two years ago, she had found him repulsive. Two years ago, she had still entertained dreams of grandeur. Yamada is the exact opposite of the elegance she had always craved, but now, two years later..._

_Maybe she had changed._

_But either way, a fatty servant doesn't sound too bad._

Ah. The smile on Celes' face is real now, even if it is tinged ever so slightly with regret. In the end, she had really defeated herself - she does not blame Yamada. And she is glad she remembers before dying, those treasured memories, even if they bring her more pain than the flames ever could.

There is a firetruck racing towards her prone form now. It's sailing through the air as it leaps off a ramp, and Celes mentally thanks the mastermind for this one last act of mercy. Perhaps the others will think otherwise - she has been robbed of her elegant death, after all - but Celes knows better. This gift transcends mercy into kindness.

This is what she would have preferred, at the end before the beginning.

Something simple, something dull, something banal...

_"If I may be so bold, Yasuhiro Taeko-dono, you wear too much makeup. I-it occludes your beauty."_

_Dramatic as always, but Celes does not scoff at Yamada. She has not done so in quite some time, actually._

_"I thought you preferred two-dimensional girls only?"_

_Yamada grins that creepy grin of his, one hand cradling his chin, and Celes tilts her head in consternation._

_"Perhaps I, too, prefer something else now."_

Celes can feel her makeup evaporating with the oppressive heat, and she thanks the mastermind once more. She had let her mask down before, after all, and so she smiles and finally lets it down once more.


End file.
